


put it back together

by helahler



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: F/F, Guilt, Post-Finale, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 03:45:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5359886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helahler/pseuds/helahler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Come on,” said Trish, smirking. “Hit me.”</p><p>Or: a lesson in self-defense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	put it back together

“Come on,” said Trish, smirking. “Hit me.”

“This is stupid,” Jess groused, flexing her gloved hands. “And I’m not going to hit you.”

“Okay,” said Trish, and punched her in the face. Jess went down like a person who had one-hundred percent not been expecting to be punched in the face.  

“Ow. Jesus. A little warning next time, maybe?” Jess groaned from the floor. She wiped her nose: no blood, but -- _Christ_ , that had hurt like a bitch.

“There’s your first lesson,” Trish instructed, holding out her hand and pulling Jess to her feet. “Attack first.”

“What’s the second lesson?” Jess said, getting her hands up, wary this time.

“Attack hard,” Trish replied, and lunged. This time she moved a little slower, slow enough for Jess to avoid getting hit in the face again, but then Trish did some kind of complicated series of movements and the next thing Jess knew she was face-down on the mat, pinned under Trish’s weight.

“Okay, okay, I got it,” Jess said, words muffled.

“You sure?” Trish sounded dubious, but she eased up anyway, rolling off and getting to her feet.

Jess sat up, rolling out a twinge in her shoulder. "Is this payback? I feel like this is payback."

"Payback for what?"

"Hm. I don't know.” Jess made no move to stand, her face changing, just for a second, so quick Trish almost didn’t catch it. But she’d had years of practice; she was good at reading between the lines of what little Jess let other people see.

“I mean, I can think of a few things,” Trish started, crossing her arms and tapping her foot, feigning impatience. “You want the list alphabetically or chronologically?”

“Asshole.” Jess got to her feet, but by the time she had her fists up she was smiling, a little.

“That you love,” Trish corrected, moving in close, hands on Jess’s hips to adjust her stance.   

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Nope,” Trish grinned. She stepped back, getting her fists up again. “Now come on. Let’s go through this again.”

“Okay,” said Jess, stepping forward and letting Trish guide her through it.

\-----

By the time they’d gone a few rounds Jess was sore and bruised and aching all over, but for the first time -- it felt good. It felt _great_.

“Jesus,” Jess breathed.

She glanced over at Trish, sitting propped against the wall, flushed and panting.

“Does this always -- feel like--” Jess started.   

“Like sex -- better than sex? Yeah.” Trish wiped her face with a hand towel, tossing Jess one for herself. “One sec.”

Trish stood, leaving the room and coming back with some bottled water for them both. They sat in comfortable silence for a while, getting their breath back, taking small sips.

Trish broke the silence after a few minutes.“I started taking these lessons again after you -- after he took you. After that call.”

Jess could remember it clearly, Kilgrave’s words typed with her hands: _I’m leaving. Don’t call. I don’t want to see you again, bitch_ , and then when Trish kept calling anyway, the call that Jess had made -- “go on, Jessica, make it convincing” -- and the words that she’d said: _I hate you. I wish I’d never met you._ Even more clearly Jess remembers the sound of Trish’s choked gasp -- the noise Jess knew she made when she was trying not to cry -- and her pained “Jess, please” and “I’m sorry”, cut off by the dialtone as Kilgrave ended the call. Jess remembers, too, the feeling of sickened devastation, which evolved into grief, and then solidified into anger, strong enough to burn through the thick miasma of Kilgrave’s control: _I’m going to fucking kill him for this._

Trish saw the look on her face, put a hand on her arm, firm. “I took more lessons when you came back, and I found out what he did to you, what he made you do." She laughed quietly; there was no humour in it. "My first thought was that I wanted to kill him. Then I realised that I couldn't do anything; not to hurt him, not to help you -- which, I'm not asking for an apology for; I know that pushing me away was your way of dealing with it. So: the training helped.” _Helped me feel in control_ , she didn’t say; Jess heard it anyway.

“Yeah,” said Jess, “I get that. I mean, I prefer alcohol and repression, but it seems like this,” she nodded towards the blood-flecked training mats, the sets of training gloves, “works pretty well for you.”

Trish snorted, rubbing her eyes. “Didn’t stop Simpson from nearly killing me that first time. If you hadn’t--”

“Hey,” Jess cut her off, “that wasn’t your fault; he caught you off guard. And that was one time. Sure, you beat him when you took that pill. Next time,” she continued, donning a pair of gloves as she got to her feet and moved to the middle of the mat, “you’re gonna kick his ass without it.”  

Jess cocked her head. “You good?” she asked.

Trish nodded, standing up, reaching for her own gloves. “You want to go again?”

“Think you can handle it?” Jess teased, smirking; a little goading, a little inviting.

“I don’t know,” Trish said, her grin going hard-edged, a little feral. She raised her fists. “Hit me and find out.”

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think -- comments/feedback are really appreciated! 
> 
> anyway: so. this happened. a few words longer than the last one; maybe one day I'll actually reach 1k for a one-shot! i guess this kind of spawned from that small scene in one of the early episodes where trish takes an unsuspecting jess down on the mat, and i actually really liked the idea of trish learning self-defense (or more specifically, krav maga) which i wish had come through more in some of the show's later scenes. 
> 
> this is kind of a continuation of my previous fic - i've got a few other vague ideas for little scenes including some of the other characters -- esp malcolm and claire -- so i'm thinking of making this into a series; let me know if this is something you'd be into! 
> 
> title, again, from how you get the girl by taylor swift. should that be the series title? that might be the series title.
> 
> hit me up on [tumblr!](http://helahler.tumblr.com/) ([formerly](http://neenaroo.tumblr.com))


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